Sonic Generations (Hands-On) (Nintendo 3DS) Preview

By Mike Mason 18.09.2011

Review for Sonic Generations (Hands-On) on Nintendo 3DS

There’s always a bunch of furore about the so-called Sonic Cycle. Initial information about a new game entices, hyping up gamers to irrational levels, before those hopes are dashed with unfavourable features and a release that does not live up to the Mega Drive’s series paragons. For all the mutter, though, Sonic’s titles have steadily increased in quality recently - Sonic the Hedgehog 4 perhaps being the exception - as SEGA rediscover the fanbase and gameplay that made the franchise such a hit in the first place, while also learning how to simultaneously please those who joined the series in the last decade. For Sonic’s 20th anniversary game, Sonic Generations, SEGA quite literally balance these two opposing audiences, with a mixture of past stages from each era of the last two decades played in both ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ re-imaginings.

Modern Sonic and Classic Sonic, via a picnic-interrupting time hole, meet and are pushed together in a quest to save their friends and clamp closed the chaos causing chrono-chasm. Bizarre, but a fair enough story by Sonic’s standards. The actually surprising thing is that, despite the two key styles of Sonic being so wildly different to one another aside general character traits, Sonic Generations fits together really rather well.

Each zone is plucked from a previous game, with the stages on offer here being Sonic the Hedgehog’s iconic Green Hill Zone, Sonic & Knuckles’ Mushroom Hill Zone and boss battle Big Arm - a return of Sonic the Hedgehog 3’s final encounter, set upon a hanging ledge of Robotnik’s Death Egg. Each is split into two acts, which allows for an easy distinction between the two gameplay styles. Act one is Classic Sonic’s territory, while act two homes Modern Sonic; boss battles are presumably shared, though Big Arm was taken on with Classic Sonic. Each tear about the re-created zones in their own ways; the designs of the zones are new, but share the aesthetics, enemies, obstacles and feel of the originals. While here it was Modern Sonic that was encountering the zones for the first time, in other stages Classic Sonic will deliver his own take to stages only found after he went into early retirement.

Final Thoughts

Somehow, no matter how strange the idea, it works. Disliked levels - though there were none in this demo - are never long enough to outstay their welcome, with sub-two minute stages aplenty. The amount of 3D gameplay in the Modern stages has been downgraded to a degree, which helps everything slot together that much more easily. Sonic Generations 3DS feels fantastic, and the straight split of gameplay time, which hopefully extends to boss battles also, should satisfy Sonic fans of both eras if the final product's quality matches that of this demo.

Sonic Generations (Nintendo 3DS)

Developer

Sonic Team

Publisher

SEGA

Genre

2D Platformer

Players

C3 Score

8/10

Reader Score

0 (0 Votes)

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Comments

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Azuardo 18.09.2011#1

Sounds promising, but I'll definitely be getting the console version to begin with, then maybe pick this one up when it drops pretty cheap. Thanks for linking to the remixed Sonic 3 final boss music too, sounds awesome, and can't wait to hear the full soundtrack for the game. Love Sonic music.

jb 18.09.2011#2

Lol I can imagine classic Sonic trying to slide and falling over on himself. Too many chili dogs old boy! Definitely an eager beaver for this one, will try it out at launch and see Smilie

Cubed3 Admin/Founder & Designer

Squidboy (guest) 18.09.2011#3

I have to opt for the 360 version, and hope Sega release a Sonic exclusive on WiiU. If sales of Generation are good on console, we may see a WiiU version later.

I'd love to see V's races/runs on any future Sonic WiiU game.

Phoenom 18.09.2011#4

So classic sonic definitely can't do a homing attack? The number of people I saw on forums dissmissing the game because the cursor showed up in c.sonic gameplay was highly amusing. Smilie

Mason 18.09.2011#5

No cursor ever flashed up when I was playing. Smilie

jb 18.09.2011#6

The thing I'm most curious about is how classic Sonic handles - in the 360/PS3 demo he's a little elastic, when you jump and "dash jump" it doesn't quite work out. How's it like in the 3DS one?

Cubed3 Admin/Founder & Designer

Mason 18.09.2011#7

It felt better than the HD demo to me. It's probably the closest to 'old Sonic' that I've seen from a recent Sonic in a long while.

jb 18.09.2011#8

Mason said:
It felt better than the HD demo to me. It's probably the closest to 'old Sonic' that I've seen from a recent Sonic in a long while.

Excellent stuff. I loved Rush, Advance and didn't quite get into Rush 2. Still, definitely looking forward to this release and what levels will make the 3DS cut Smilie

Cubed3 Admin/Founder & Designer

Squidboy (guest) 19.09.2011#9

@Mason
Do you control Sonic with the D-Pad or Circle-Pad?. I have a hard time believing a 2D Sonic game using the 3DS's D-pad can control as well as it should. I imagine it would be very frustrating for those seeking the best speed-run times.

The HD version feels great when played with a proper D-Pad, which neither 360 or PS3 default controllers have. I played the 360 version with an Onza and SFIV pad, and both worked excellently.

JoshSL 19.09.2011#10

I'm looking forward to both versions honestly. The 3DS version looked awful from E3 playtests but it's been really sharpened up from the looks of things, so I'm guessing the HD version's physics have been worked on a lot since then too.

Either way bring on November omg. The fact that the games have two sets of stages and different gameplay styles to each other make them pretty much like two different games so I can't wait for all the Sonic~

Twitter | C3 Writer/Moderator | Backloggery

Mason 19.09.2011#11

Squidboy (guest) said:
@Mason
Do you control Sonic with the D-Pad or Circle-Pad?. I have a hard time believing a 2D Sonic game using the 3DS's D-pad can control as well as it should. I imagine it would be very frustrating for those seeking the best speed-run times.

You can use either. I opted for the Circle Pad.

Super Sonic 23.09.2011#12

Both versions look great. The older builds of the 3DS version looked like it was just ported from Sonic 4. But now it looks like Dimps could be getting in my good books. I will have to see. And the stages look like a good choice as well, but I really want some of the Advance or Rush stages to be in. Maybe they will be part of the exclusive set for multiplayer.